


At Another Place in Time

by moodlighting



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fate, Strangers to Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 10:30:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14259024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodlighting/pseuds/moodlighting
Summary: On the back, there’s a short note, written in a hurry, the letters neat but uneven:Hi,I used to live in your apartment. I’m drunk in Boston, and it’s the only address I knowHappy HolidaysScottTessa frowns down at it, slowing to a stop as she reaches her front door. Scott? She doesn’t think she knows a Scott.AU. The lives Tessa and Scott might have led, without the medals, without 20 years together, and how they found each other anyway.





	At Another Place in Time

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. Neither I nor God Herself could have predicted I'd be writing about two heterosexual figure skaters from Canada, but life zigged and I zagged. Yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery, and today's a gift.
> 
> I only have a very basic knowledge of figure skating, so please suspend your disbelief for any inaccuracies that may follow. I also don't intend to imply anything about the real lives or relationships of Tessa Virtue or Scott Moir. This is clearly all for fun and fiction.
> 
> Based in part on [this](http://mooodlighting.tumblr.com/post/151625146385) prompt. I hope you enjoy it!

Four days before Christmas, the postcard arrives in her mailbox. On the front, there’s a stock photo of tidy brownstones in a row, framed on each side by green trees flowering pink in the summer. It’s an unexpected pop of color between the other plain white envelopes, annual Christmas cards from friends and family, bills to be put off until the new year. On the back, there’s a short note, written in a hurry, the letters neat but uneven:

**_Hi,_ **

**_I used to live in your apartment. I’m drunk in Boston, and it’s the only address I know  
_** **_Happy Holidays_ **

**_Scott_ **

Tessa frowns down at it, slowing to a stop as she reaches her front door. Scott? She doesn’t think she knows a Scott. She wouldn’t, of course, if this anonymous Scott, as he says, lived in her place before she moved in. Tessa hardly knows her current neighbors, let alone the past residents.

With an absent-minded shake of her head, Tessa keys into her apartment, unwinding her scarf with her free hand and dropping it into the basket at the bottom of her closet as she thumbs through the rest of the mail. She toes off her boots and moves quietly through her silent apartment, flipping on lights as she passes them by. The bills get deposited on the table to be dealt with later, and she reads through each of the Christmas cards as she pours herself a generous glass of wine, taking slow sips from it.

She heats up leftovers and eats them straight from the container. The evening news hums low in the background, keeping her company. It’s another quiet evening in, just as she likes. When she finishes her wine, she wraps herself in a blanket and reads ahead for next semester’s Developmental Psychology course. She likes to stay ahead of the syllabus.

Like most nights, she goes to bed early. She pulls her hair up and washes her face, brushes her teeth and moisturizes. In her pajamas, she flips off the lights as she passes each of them by. When she stops at the kitchen sink for a glass of water, she finds the postcard again, left on the counter alongside the various Christmas cards. Without much thought, she turns it to the photo of the brownstones and fastens it to her fridge with a magnet.

That night, Tessa dreams of summer.

* * *

She heads home for Christmas and stays at her parents’ house. Jordan’s in town too, and Tessa can’t remember the last time her whole family spent a holiday in the same place. The house is full and warm all week, their time together is simple and good, and as she goes to sleep in her childhood bedroom every night, it all feels and looks the same as it always has, which is a comfort in itself.

She finds herself thinking about the postcard occasionally, left behind in Toronto hanging on her refrigerator door. The melancholy of the words always seems close at her heels as she spends time around London, catching up with her hometown friends over brunch, pushing a cart full of baking supplies down supermarket aisles with her mom, going on a not-so-subtle blind date that Jordan sets up under the guise of a girls’ night out. How she still finds guys to set her up with when she lives halfway across the world, Tessa doesn’t know.

She finds herself thinking about her postcard writer because Tessa hopes, whether he’s in Boston or Toronto or someplace else entirely, that he got to spend the holidays with someone too. And on her drive back to Toronto, Tessa begins to wonder how difficult it would be to find the kind of person who has only a first name and a single address in their head.

* * *

Tessa is as good of friends with her building manager as a tenant can be with their landlord. She’s a stern woman who goes almost exclusively by her full name, Miss Basile Marquardt, but signs off on all paperwork with only her initials - “BM.” Tessa has yet to find the courage to tell her what that acronym usually stands for.

Miss Marquardt manages several buildings, primarily rented out by university students, and she values the ones who keep her places nice and don’t cause any trouble. Tessa has never found herself outside of Miss Marquardt’s good graces, but as she approaches her office with the Boston postcard in hand, she considers that her favor might soon be running out.

“Basile?” she calls out, knocking lightly on the door. They’ve been on a first name basis since Tessa vacuumed the community room every weekend in the fall, clearing out the muddy fallen leaves everyone else tracked in.

Gruffly, “Come in.”

Tessa rounds the corner with a small, friendly smile on her face. Miss Marquardt looks up from the papers scattered across her desk.

“Tessa!” she greets warmly, returning the smile with one of her own. “Come in, come in. Have a seat.”

Tessa does, sitting delicately on the edge of the ancient office chair opposite of Miss Marquardt.

“What can I do for you today, dear? Not a problem with your shitter again, I hope?”

Tessa laughs uncomfortably. “Uh, no, nope. Nothing like that. The thing is - and I’m not sure if it’s possible, or, even, uh, _legal_ , but I was hoping you might be able to provide me with a name?” Tessa says, overly formal. Before Miss Marquardt can ask any questions, she places the postcard on the desk for her to read. “I got this in the mail before the holidays. From a former resident of yours. I was hoping to get in contact with him.”

Miss Marquardt’s eyes slowly scan the message, then, after a pause, meet Tessa’s gaze once more. “Why?” she asks simply.

Tessa opens her mouth. And abruptly closes it. She frowns to herself. She finds that she doesn’t have a good answer. She genuinely doesn’t know. Maybe it’s because the postcard is a curiosity, an intriguing puzzle she’d like to solve. Maybe it’s because she’s running out of interesting ways to fill up her free time outside of work and homework. Maybe it’s because the note just made her sad.

If she’s silent for too long it doesn’t matter in the end, because Miss Marquardt doesn’t wait for an answer.

“Yeah, I remember him,” she says. Tessa sits up straighter in her creaky seat. “The Moir boy.” She considers it for another moment. Then, muttering to herself, “A loud one...”

Tessa pulls out a pen. “Could you spell that for me?”

* * *

She looks him up on Facebook to find out where he works - “Co-Owner at O’Rourke’s Tavern, Toronto,” his page says. It’s less than fifteen minutes from Tessa’s apartment, of all the places in the world he might have been. She shows up at the bar that following Friday but feels too much like a creep to be comfortable that she’s doing it at all. If their places were switched, Tessa thinks, she would feel majorly weirded out at the _very_ least, not to mention threatened by the fact that some strange man had tracked her down over an anonymous postcard.

 _And for what?_ Tessa asks herself. She still doesn’t know why she’s here.

She almost gets up from her stool and forgets the whole scheme entirely, when one of the bartenders finally approaches her end of the counter. His nametag, which is handwritten in the same large letters scrawled across the postcard tucked inside her purse, reads SCOTT.

“What can I get for you?” he asks, stopping in front of her. He’s only half paying attention, head turned away to laugh at something one of the customers at the other end of the bar has said.

Tessa recognizes him from the profile picture she studied briefly on Facebook. The same nose, the same flop of dark, half-curling hair. Undeniably, it’s a strange meeting for her.

“You’re Scott?” she asks hesitantly.

That gets his attention, and he turns to her, searching her face curiously for a moment. Then, pulling his shirt away from his chest to get a good look at his nametag, he says, “I guess I am.” He smiles; a bright, crooked, genuine thing. “Something I can do for you?”

Tessa reaches for her purse beneath her feet. “I have something of yours.” She continues from under the bar, digging through her bag, “Well, something you sent me, I guess, but it’s this thing -”

She sits back up, and he’s looking at her quizzically. She places the postcard on the bar between them by way of explanation. “This.”

With a finger, Scott pulls it across the polished wood closer to himself. It seems to take a moment for it to compute, then he’s letting out an explosive cheer that almost startles Tessa out of her seat. He throws his arms up in the air, jumping and spinning in place. She holds out her hands in surprise, as if to steady him, eyes wide.

“Someone actually got it!” Scott yells to no one in particular. “This is awesome!”

Tessa was not expecting this kind of reaction. Scott’s acting like he’s been reunited with a long-lost message in a bottle, treasured then tossed out to sea, not a standard piece of mail.

He’s still beaming when his attention finally returns to Tessa. “That’s so cool, man,” he says. He calmly hands the postcard back to her, his exuberant energy gone as suddenly as it had appeared. “How’s my old apartment treating you, eh?” he says. And, with affection, “How’s my favorite BM?”

The nickname shocks a laugh out of her. “It’s good,” Tessa replies, grinning. “And she’s good too. Still signing her name that way,” she offers.

Scott‘s smiling right along with her, wide and authentic in his happiness. “Awesome. That’s so awesome to hear...sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Tessa,” she says. She extends her hand.

And he takes it. “Scott,” he replies. “But you already knew that.”

With their hands still clasped together, they both pause to simply look at one another. The moment is short, but it passes oddly, unhurriedly, until they both let go at the same time.

Scott smiles again. “All right then, Big T, I think this calls for a drink. On the house! What can I get for you?”

* * *

Perhaps Tessa has had one drink too many. She normally only drinks wine, not hard liquor, but she quickly learned that O’Rourke’s was not that kind of bar. Scott had refused to serve her wine out of a box, for the sake of his own reputation.

So maybe she’s had one drink beyond her tolerance level, but it’s Friday night, and Scott and his brother - the other co-owner, another fact she’s learned - are accommodating, and it was a hard week, and she’s having a good time.

And most dangerous of all, even if it’s only been a handful of hours, she likes him. Scott. It’s January and it’s so cold outside and she’s in a dive bar, and Tessa Virtue is stupidly happy that a month ago, from a place and in a state of mind not so different from where Tessa now finds herself, Scott Moir decided to send her a postcard.

* * *

Tessa doesn’t exactly remember exchanging phone numbers with him, but after that night at O’Rourke’s, Scott texts her nearly every day. Their messages have no real beginning or end, no good mornings or goodbyes, just conversations picked up and left off wherever they please, filled with picture updates and anecdotes on the inanities of their daily lives.

Soon they’re spending most of their time outside of work and class with each other too. They get coffee on their free mornings and split a chocolate milk over lunch every Thursday. They watch trash television on lazy weekends and both fall asleep on opposite ends of her couch before ten p.m. They laugh until Tessa feels like her ribs will split apart and fall into comfortable silences like they’ve been best friends for decades. And it all comes so easily that Tessa almost starts to believe it.

Even without planning to, she seems to end up at Scott’s side. She goes to the supermarket one evening and happens upon him in the produce section, comparing, with a very determined crease between his brows, two seemingly identical pears, one held in each hand. Like her, he’s got a shopping basket balanced in the crook of his elbow.

Tessa smiles to herself. He hasn’t spotted her yet. Bagging the fresh basil she plucked from the lightly misted bundles, she heads in his direction.

“Hey,” she bounds up to him and wraps a hand around his arm in greeting.

When he turns, Tessa is almost knocked sideways by the way his entire face transforms at the sight of her, softening at the edges and brightening with a smile. It nearly takes the breath out of her lungs, her heartbeat stumbling over itself inside her chest.

“Tess!” he exclaims. “What are you doing here?!”

She holds up her basket like it’s obvious. “Grocery shopping?” she laughs.

Abandoning his pair of pears, he wrangles her into an enormous hug, like they hadn’t just seen each other two days ago. They fumble with their bulky shopping baskets until they can comfortably get their arms around each other. He sways her gently in the middle of the produce aisle, right between the apples and the pears.

They finish their late night shopping together. Wandering in and out of the aisles, they chat happily, baskets on opposite elbows, their hands brushing between them until Scott, without ceremony, simply picks up her hand and holds it in his own, their fingers twining.

Tessa doesn’t even question it; that’s just Scott. He seems to have a bottomless well of affection to draw from, his outpouring of honest emotion a constant between them. It’s something new in Tessa’s life but she finds, now that it’s here, that it’s not something she’d want to change. She loves it, and she would never want Scott to be anything less than his full, genuine self.

His personality is larger than life. He fills up entire rooms just by passing through them. Dynamic, Scott draws in everyone around him with the sheer force of his boisterous energy. His charisma is undeniable.

He’s not the person Tessa was expecting to find based on the postcard he sent, but the more Tessa watches him, learns from him, the more she sees how thoughtful and inquisitive he is too; how sensitive and kind. And it’s in the darker, quieter moments, when he falls silent, when his entire presence feels halved, that Tessa can see the small part of him, only a fraction of who Scott is as a person, that she knew before she even learned his full name.

Because it’s one she recognizes in herself too. A scab of loneliness, one that never bleeds but is never quite able to heal either. Tessa has her work friends, of course, and her university friends, the everyday acquaintances that keep her tied into the rhythm of the city. But in Toronto, Tessa has always felt isolated, detached from the people around her. She can’t remember the last time she connected with someone the way she has with Scott.

For Scott, there are his brothers, his hockey team, the regular patrons at the bar he clearly adores - all good people Tessa has met and enjoyed. Watching him with them, however, Tessa can’t help but think that Scott seems as little adrift among them too, just like Tessa feels.

As she felt.

Scott balances her in a way she didn’t even know she needed, and the feeling seems to be mutual. They draw each other in in the same way, always reaching out for each other’s touch like they can’t bear to go without it again.

They both got lost in the city somehow. Off-track. Yet they still managed to find each other. And with Scott, Tessa feels more whole than she has in a long time. Like something, fundamentally, has been righted. Like this is where she’s meant to be.

* * *

Sometimes, Tessa thinks about fate. She considers it a largely pointless exercise, pondering something both so fanciful, so uncertain and unknowable. But with increasing frequency, she can’t help but wonder.

Their days off line up over a spare weekend in March, and Scott plans a surprise for her. He picks her up at her apartment mid-morning, hands her a banana as she slips into the passenger seat, and instructs her to keep her eyes shut. She closes them dutifully and doesn’t peek the whole drive to their destination, quietly munching on the banana as Scott sings his heart out to the radio next to her.

With each turn, Tessa tries to follow their route along her mental map of the city. She completely loses track long before Scott’s putting the car into park, however, so it’s a genuine surprise when she opens her eyes and sees where it is he’s taken her.

It’s an outdoor ice rink.

All the air immediately leaves Tessa’s lungs. It comes out as a short, breathless laugh.

“Yeah, you’re in my house now, T,” Scott says, the challenge clear in his voice. He’s been sour ever since she kicked his ass at racquetball the other week. He’s already unbuckling, taking her browning banana peel out of her hand as he jumps out of the car.

Tessa’s slower to follow, still slightly stunned.

It’s not something she’s mentioned to him yet, so when he asks, “You any good at this?” after they’ve laced up their rental skates and walked up to the boards, she withholds. “Decent,” she replies, not giving anything away.

He takes her hand and they step out onto the ice.

Scott’s much lighter on the ice than she’s seen him before in his hockey skates, and Tessa is steady next to him as they skate a few loose circles around the rink. That she can stay upright on ice wouldn’t surprise him; she is still Canadian, after all.

She lets him skate circles around her for a while, goofing off and dancing to the music playing above their heads as they warm up. When he starts to focus, picking up speed, she matches him stroke for stroke, their skates scraping across the ice in sync. He shifts and begins stroking backwards, which she follows up with a proper turn and outpaces him around the curve. He raises his eyebrows at her. She bites her lip, holding back a laugh.

The movements come back to her as if she’d never left them behind, muscle memory working in overtime as she executes a back crossover into an axel, landing it with embellishment and following it through with her free leg and arms straight. It’s a bit stiff - not her best work, but enough to leave Scott gawking at her from where he’s faltered and slowed to a stop at the boards. She does laugh now, throwing in some fancy footwork, toe stops and couple more turns as she circles her way back around the rink to where he’s standing.

She comes in fast and stops precisely in front of him, shaving ice onto the black of his pant legs. He glances down at the mess she’s made then back up at her.

“‘Decent’?” he repeats, disbelieving.

Tessa shrugs. Her cheeks are chapped red by the whip of cold wind and she’s a little out of breath, but she can’t stop grinning at him.

“T, that was amazing!” he exclaims. He grabs her wrist, pulling her across the space between them and into a hug. “You never told me you knew how to skate. Like, really skate!”

She wraps her arms around his waist comfortably, a position she’s well used to by now. She laughs against his chest.

“You were holding out on me,” Scott accuses, squeezing her once, affectionately, before gently separating their bodies.

An arms’ distance apart, holding onto each other’s elbows, they stand there and smile at each other for a long moment. Then, wordlessly, they both lower their hands and lock fingers once more, starting forward in one fluid movement, falling easily into step.

“I trained for over eleven years,” she begins to explain as they glide leisurely across the ice, maneuvering around the other pairs and small kids scattered around the rink.

“No shit?” Scott says. “What discipline?”

“Ice dance,” Tessa says.

Scott gasps. “Me too!” he says. He pivots around her smoothly so they’re skating face-to-face. He takes her other hand in his.

“Wait, really?” Tessa frowns, just as surprised as he was. “You never mentioned that. I thought hockey was -”

“Before hockey I did ice dance for a bunch of years. I started when I was six,” Scott explains. “Tess, this is crazy. How did we not know this about each other? Where did you train?”

“I moved between a few places, but I started at -”

She hasn’t even gotten the full name out before Scott’s skates are scraping harshly against the ice, bringing them to an abrupt stop. He presses his palms to his chest emphatically. “Me too,” he says. His voice is hoarse, almost awestruck.

The moment is dizzying, the full magnitude of coincidence surrounding their meeting seeming to come to a head in a split second. All the world fades into the background around them, narrowing down until there is only Tessa and Scott.

Tessa has no idea what to say. She doesn’t register the other skaters soaring by them or the breeze from their passing as it blows her hair into her face. She can only stand there, arms held loosely at her sides, staring up at Scott. Stunned.

Time, barely moving as it is, lurches to a complete stop as soon as Scott reaches for her. With the utmost delicacy and reverence, his hand touches her face. Smoothing his fingertips across her cheek, he carefully tucks the loose hair back into place behind her ear. Shivers race from the top of Tessa’s spine down to her toes. When his fingers come to rest at the curve of her neck, his thumb brushing her jaw, she reaches up and wraps her hand around his forearm, wanting - needing - his touch to stay.

“Scott...how is any of this possible?” she asks, gazing at him.

It’s almost too much to consider all at once, everything they’ve learned about each other in such a short time. The coincidences go as far back as them both being born in the same _hospital_. They spent their entire childhoods in the same town, even living only few streets apart at one point, as they recently found out.

Everything seemed to have been working in their favor, but they never once met. Until now, as adults.

As kids, they were both ice dancers. They skated at the same center, but never with each other. Until now, on an overcast day March, at an ice rink in Toronto.

In Toronto, they lived in the exact same apartment, but, as if the universe was conspiring against them, just missed each once more.

Until Scott unknowingly sent Tessa a postcard.

Tessa can’t comprehend the depth, the _meaning_ of it all. Her voice is barely a whisper, vulnerable, as she says to him, “Doesn’t it - doesn’t it feel like we were supposed to be together?”

Scott’s eyes search hers. “Tess…” he murmurs, overwhelmed. He leans in, pressing his forehead to hers. He seems caught between closing the distance and holding himself back completely.

Tessa shudders in a breath, her heart racing. _Maybe this is what it’s supposed to mean,_ she thinks to herself.

They’ve lived their entire lives in parallel, sometimes coming close but never crossing paths until now. Tessa thinks, wonderingly, _I finally found you._ Without consciously deciding to, she places her hands on Scott’s hips and guides herself toward him, bringing them impossibly closer. They breathe the same cold air, only inches separating their faces, and Tessa can feel the fog of his breath on her lips.

Both of Scott’s hands delicately cup the back of her neck, just barely brushing her hairline as his thumbs stroke the side of her jaw. He doesn’t close the distance between them. He doesn’t respond to her question either. Instead, he says, “Tessa...will you skate with me?”

* * *

They skate together. They carve out a short routine that’s safe and manageable for them both, given the years they’ve spent away from the sport. Synchronicity develops between them faster than either of them could have expected. They rotate in loose twizzles, counting out the rhythm, angling their arms and shoulders into the same position as they spin, matching their hands and pointed toes. They work and rework a step sequence until neither of them miss a beat. As they gain more confidence, they add in a few simple lifts, nothing extravagant - a loop lift at the waist, a beginner’s waltz jump that makes Tessa feel just as giddy as it did when she first started ice dance. Neither Scott’s hold, nor her trust in him, ever falters.

It’s as exhilarating as any choreography Tessa has learned, any program she took to competition. It’s also hard work, but the exact kind Tessa cherishes; the kind that leaves her muscles aching and her mind satisfied with a job well done. It’s more fun than she remembers too, with Scott matching her concentration and commitment to their little dance as if they’re training for Olympic ice, not skating until dusk starts to settle at a public rink.

They even draw an audience. The rest of the patrons at the rink follow their progress as unobtrusively as they can as they skate alongside Tessa and Scott. Tessa learns almost every person’s name from the small pointers and kind compliments they offer them all afternoon. And by the time they’ve worked out the details as best they can, their funny little group of supporters is waiting on bated breath. They’re looking for a grand finale, and neither Tessa nor Scott is willing to deny them that.

For their “final performance,” all of the other skaters move to the opposite side of the ice, happily giving Tessa and Scott the rink to themselves. They lean against the boards or settle in on the icy bleachers with hot cocoa in their mittened hands, families and elderly couples and small kids all rapt as Tessa and Scott take up position at center ice.

They begin with Tessa’s hand on Scott’s heart, his hand on top of hers, and their eyes on each other. She can feel his heartbeat beneath her palm, the slow exhale of his breath, and she can feel it’s the same as her own. In sync.

They skate together. Their lines are as smooth and their edges as deep as they can be, given the fact that their routine was put together in only a few hours. They easily inhabit the same space on the ice, never shying away from each other, how close they come, or the intensity between them. They’re only playing themselves, but Tessa knows they’re still engaging their audience when she chances a look and sees their wide eyes and gasping mouths. Tessa grins.

They complete each of their jumps and lifts, the step sequence, the pivots and crossovers, until finally, they’re circling each other one last time and meeting back at center ice. In one smooth motion, Scott lifts her off the ice again, his arms supporting her lower back and the bend of her knees, her arms winding around his neck. He twirls them through the final spin and effortlessly lowers them both into the final position, each with one knee on the ice, facing each other. Her hand is back on his heart, his palm cradling her face, their noses touching and heavy breaths warming each other’s wind-bitten cheeks. The thought flits through Tessa’s mind before she has time to consider it: _This is where we would kiss,_ she thinks.

It passes. Tessa finds herself captivated by the sight of Scott’s euphoric grin instead, bright and only a few inches from her own. She lets her head fall forward, her forehead coming to rest on Scott’s shoulder for a moment, neither one of them able to hold back the punchy giggles.

They compose themselves and help each other up from the ice, taking several exaggerated bows before their audience, relishing in and humbled by their very enthusiastic applause. The other skaters are on their feet, whooping and hollering as Scott twirls Tessa around him with what could be taken as practiced ease, both of them raising their arms and linked hands after each turn.

And when the applause fades away, their audience’s attention shifting to unlacing skates and packing up cars, they have a moment just for themselves. Scott wraps Tessa in a tight hug, their bodies curving into each other. He kisses her cheek. “It would’ve been gold,” he murmurs into her ear.

* * *

It starts to snow on the drive back to Tessa’s apartment, heavy, wet snowflakes quickly blanketing the city around them in a layer of white. Scott’s quiet next to her, the radio turned down low, and the hypnotic rhythm of the windshield wipers nearly lulls Tessa to sleep. Resting her forehead against the cold window, she watches the snowflakes dance in the darkness on the other side of the glass, glowing gold under the yellow street lights.

Tessa’s legs are pleasantly sore, her whole body loosened with the ache of a good workout. The fatigue is making the world around her feel muted, taking on an almost swimmy, underwater slowness. She can’t wait to curl up under her covers and drift into complete unconsciousness, and she knows Scott probably feels the same.

When they arrive, she invites him to stay. They drag themselves wearily out of his car and trudge up the front steps. Keying into her apartment, Tessa unwinds her scarf with her free hand and drops it into the basket at the bottom of her closet. Scott does the same, pulling off his bobble hat and stepping out of his shoes. Together, they move quietly through her silent apartment, not bothering to turn on more than her bedroom light. Scott immediately faceplants diagonally across her bed, the bottom half of his legs and socked feet dangling off the edge. A blissful smile takes over his face as he sinks into the plushness of her comforter.

Tessa smiles at the sight of him, endeared. She cards her fingers through his hair as she passes him by. Hopefully he has enough sense to change out of his sweaty clothes before passing out, Tessa thinks. She knows there’s a perfectly decent pair of sweats and a few miscellaneous shirts of his tucked away in a drawer from the last time he stayed over.

Tessa, feeling too grimy to go to bed without a rinse, takes a quick shower to warm up and wash away the day’s stickiness before changing into her pajamas. By the time she’s wrung out her hair and hung up the towel, washed her face, brushed her teeth and moisturized, Scott has indeed mustered the energy to put on the clean clothes, laying back down at a much more conservative angle. His eyes are closed but he’s not under the covers, lying still with his legs crossed at the ankles and his hands clasped on his chest. Tessa can tell he’s not asleep yet.

She sits on the opposite side of the bed, tucking one leg under herself as she braids her hair over her shoulder. Glancing at her alarm clock, she finds it’s much later than she expected. She hardly noticed the time passing while she was on the ice with Scott today.

Her comforter rustles as he shifts in place next to her, and Tessa feels his gaze land on her more than she sees it. Tying off the end of her braid, she meets his eyes and offers him a small, tired smile before moving to settle under the covers. She’s stopped short by his hand landing on the bare skin of her knee, just below the edge of her sleep shorts.

She looks at him questioningly. He gently turns her leg.

“These scars,” he murmurs. “That’s why you stopped skating?”

He lets go, just watching as she traces her fingers down the long, straight scar marking her right calf. The scars have never bothered her, representing only one aspect of the life she’s lived. One event that happened and has since passed; one that Tessa believes made her stronger in the end. There’s so much more in her life to celebrate and cherish.

“Yeah,” she answers. “Compartment Syndrome. It essentially came down to a choice between healthy legs or figure skating.” She shrugs. “I made peace with it. I was ready to hang up my skates when the time came. I wanted to go to school, move on. Ahead. So.” She shrugs again, not sure what else there is to say.

Tessa glances over at him. His eyes are understanding, the smallest sympathetic tilt to his lips. Scott doesn’t need to say anything for Tessa to recognize his acceptance, the warmth of his support.

“What about you?” Tessa asks. “Why’d you quit?”

He waits until she’s settled under the covers, curling up on her side and adjusting the pillows so they stay at eye level. Resting his cheek in his palm, Scott turns onto his side too, their bodies mirroring each other. “My partner outgrew me,” he explains simply. “When she moved on, I decided not to continue. Not much more to it than that.”

Tessa doesn’t need to say anything either. She just nods, commiserative.

Around them, her bedroom is silent; just the sound of their breathing is enough to encompass them in their own private bubble. Where his free hand lies in the space between their pillows, Tessa reaches out and flattens his fingers against the bed, toying with them mindlessly. She traces around his knuckles then spreads her own fingers on top of his, lining up their palms, comparing the difference in their shapes. Scott lets her manipulate his hand however she likes, just watching her quietly. When she presses her fingertips down against his, he presses back.

Tessa blinks slowly. Her eyelids are growing heavy and she knows she could fall asleep at any moment, but she’s not ready to. Not yet. “Can you imagine if we would’ve skated together before today?” she wonders out loud. “Been paired together when we were just kids?”

Clearly the idea isn’t completely implausible. At this point, it’s starting to feel more farfetched that they _didn’t_ skate together.

Scott shrugs. “I thought we did all right today on our own.” He pauses then, considering. “Besides, I don’t think I’d change how things turned out between us,” he says. “If we were athletes or, or _partners_ , our lives would be so different than they are now. And I think...if I had the choice, I wouldn’t trade that for what we have now. I wouldn’t change a single thing about us.”

Still staring at their hands, Tessa strokes her fingers once down the length of his, curling her fingers into her palm and rapping her knuckles softly against his open palm. She looks up at him. His eyes are half-lidded, dark brown under the single lit lamp in her room.

“No?” she asks quietly. There is one thing she might change, Tessa thinks.

Tessa sees him swallow. Then, carefully, moving underwater-slow, Scott shifts his head to the edge of his pillow so their noses are almost touching again, like they were back on the ice. Tessa remembers what she thought in that moment. _This is where we would kiss._

Scott joins their hands again, slowly, purposefully lacing their fingers together. His other hand reaches up, delicately holding the curve of her cheek. There’s nothing else between them.

Before, on the ice, Tessa’s heart felt like it was going to pound out of her chest. Now, she only feels at ease. Calm. Again, overwhelmingly, like this is where she’s supposed to be.

“You said before, that it feels like we were supposed to be together,” Scott says. “Did you mean it?”

He doesn’t say the words, but Tessa hears them anyway: _Together, like this?_ So she answers his unspoken question truthfully.

“In that moment? No, I didn’t.” She watches him flinch, only slightly, trying to mask the hurt, the embarrassment of his apparent miscalculation. Tessa stops him before he can move away entirely, however. She strokes her hand from the curve his brow down to his jaw, holding his cheek in return. “I meant that...that we were always supposed to know each other. To find each other. And we did,” Tessa smiles at him. “But I think - I think that if we want to be together, that’s our choice. That’s not something that’s decided for us.”

Scott’s eyes haven’t left hers once, steady and open to every emotion passing between them. His thumb strokes continually at the soft skin of her temple; Tessa’s not sure he’s even aware he’s doing it.

“Is that something you want, Tess?” Scott asks softly. “To be with me?”

Tessa nods. They’re holding each other so close it only takes the barest movement of her chin, the tiniest smile to express her radiant joy.

Scott returns her smile with one of his own, small and filled with hope. “So be with me,” he whispers.

Like finding each other, this too feels like a certainty, an inevitability, but not in the same way. No, this is a path they’ve both been consciously walking down from the moment they first met, a destination they’ve been moving toward together since the first time they touched. Sometimes Tessa does think about fate, but in this moment, it never crosses her mind. As she leans in and presses her lips to Scott’s, Tessa knows it’s not predestination, and it’s not fate. It’s simply what she wants.

She crosses her arms at the back of his neck, pulling her body into his as their lips part and tongues meet. Scott’s hands follow the lines of her body from her throat to her waist and everywhere else, exploring each of her curves like he doesn’t know how to do anything else. Tessa gasps as his fingers grip at the back of her thigh and guide her leg firmly over his hips, bringing them even closer. Tessa feels like she can’t catch her breath. She turns her head, breaking their mouths apart and pressing her cheek to his. Their chests heave together. Scott lowers his head to kiss wetly at the join of her neck and shoulder, a hot point of contact that contrasts his hands, delicately rubbing up and down her back, soothing.

Their mouths meet again, their hands working intently under each other’s clothes. Tessa’s fingers spread across the musculature of his stomach, his palm smoothing across the soft expanse of her bare back.

Blood rushes from Tessa’s extremities to her center. She can barely make out the words Scott’s saying with the dull roar in her ears, but what she does hear makes her heart pound even harder against her ribcage. Surely he must feel it against his own chest.

Mostly, he says her name. “Tess, Tessa,” he rasps between kisses. “Want you so much, Tess,” and “I’m so lucky to have you, T,” and “Been waiting for this for so long, didn’t know if you felt the same -”

At that, Tessa curls her fingers into his hair, tugging his head up so she can look at him. She places a firm kiss on his lips so he knows nothing is ending here, and his mouth chases hers as she pulls away to speak. “What did you think we were doing all this time?” she laughs as he manages to land a kiss at the corner of her mouth.

He hovers only a breath away. They’re back where they started, noses brushing as they face each other. “You’re my best friend, Tessa. I didn’t want to assume -” Scott starts.

He has one arm wrapped around her, holding her close. His hand is splayed across her stomach at the dip of her belly button, lingering under her soft sleep shirt but neither exploring further up nor roaming further down.

Tessa doesn’t think she’s ever been touched like this. Scott holds her like she’s the whole delicate world, tender and reverent, but at the same time not afraid to explore with resolve. He knows her; knows her hesitancies and her strength, and somehow it all translates perfectly into knowing exactly what she wants. Together in her bed, he opens up to her with the same honest emotion he’s always had. The intensity, the connection between them hasn’t changed at all.

Where would she ever find something like this again?

How could she ever want anything else?

Tessa was the first to pull away but now she can’t help but kiss him again, deeply and with everything she’s got. She’ll never forgive herself if she allows him question her feelings for even a moment longer. Scott meets her determined desire with equal heat, understanding her without a single word uttered. He follows his hands up her sides, unfaltering now as he takes her shirt with him. He casts it carelessly aside once it’s up and over her head. Her braid has come apart, hair falling in loose waves across the pillowcase. He brushes it away from her cheeks as he kisses her and kisses her and kisses her.

They work together to get Tessa out from under the covers she needlessly climbed under and help each other out of the rest of their clothes. When they finally lay bare together, Scott pauses to simply trace the length of one of her elegant arms, skimming the back of his fingers across her sensitive skin until he reaches her hand. Shivers tremble through Tessa’s body as he clasps their palms together. Fingers twining, he lifts their hands and presses them into the mattress above their heads. Their eyes never leave each other, their bodies moving together like they were built to fit. Tessa cranes her neck to press their lips together once more. Then, taking his free hand, she guides him by the wrist to where she needs his touch most.

Tessa lets herself get lost in the feeling.

* * *

As the cool winter light begins to pour in through her curtains, Tessa blinks herself slowly into awareness. Frowning, she peels her tired eyes apart, lifting her head from her pillow to peer blearily out the window. She squints against the morning sun. From the milkiness of the light, Tessa can tell it’s still too early to be awake, and there’s far too much snow on the ground for her to even consider getting up right now. She drops her head back down onto the pillow.

Exhaling deeply, Tessa stretches in place, careful not to disturb the warm presence at her back. They’re skin to skin under the sheets, where Scott has curled himself around her body like he has no intention of letting go any time soon. Their knees are bent together, his arms locked around her waist. Tessa smiles to herself. He has his head turned into her shoulder, nose pressed to the crook of her neck, and she can feel his peaceful breathing as he sleeps on.

She folds her arm over his, holding him where he holds her, and settles in even closer. Comfortable and warm, Tessa lets her eyelids slip shut and just...drifts. Drowsing contentedly between wakefulness and sleep, Tessa thinks she’s never in her life felt so fortunate to be exactly where she is.

* * *

She finds it in the most innocuous of places, where she really should have expected it the most: Home.

Winter has melted away into the warmth of spring, and spring into the beginning weeks of summer when they make the trip back to London together. There are Moir family dinners and Virtue family dinners and combined Virtue-Moir family dinners as Tessa and Scott introduce each other to their parents and miscellaneous siblings for the first time.

Tonight they’ve all gathered at Joe and Alma’s for pasta, and with both of their families crowded around the table together, Tessa thinks that home has never felt as complete as it does in this moment. When she turns to Scott and meets his gaze, he bumps his ankle to hers, as if to say, _me too_.

After dinner, Tessa and her mother manage to strongarm their hosts out of the kitchen, insisting on handling the dirty dishes themselves. From where they stand at the Moirs’ kitchen sink, Tessa can hear Scott’s honking laugh and the occasional clang of dishes filtering in from the dining room, where he and his brothers have joined in on the clean-up effort.

Leaning in close, Kate presses her temple to her daughter’s for a brief moment. “He’s a good man,” she murmurs warmly.

Kate doesn’t say anything more; she doesn’t need to. Simply kissing Tessa once on the cheek, she returns her attention to the serving bowl in her hands. Tessa, staring down at the soapy water, smiles quietly to herself.

Ilderton is beautiful at night. On the other side of the patio doors, the house has grown still over the last hour, with Tessa’s family and the Moir brothers all on their way back home, Scott’s parents having retired inside with the collection of empty glasses. The sunroom is cozy around the two of them, the huge windows surrounding the space offering an almost uninterrupted view of both the back garden and the stars now beginning to dot the sky. Just the small space heater Scott fetched is enough to keep them warm as the temperature steadily drops, the sun setting in a last gasp of pink on the horizon.

Scott, who wore himself out attempting to climb a telephone pole with his brothers earlier in the day, has claimed most of the real estate on the swing sofa they share. Spread out, he has his feet propped up on the armrest, his head pillowed against Tessa’s leg, and by all accounts, appears to be fast asleep.

Tessa rocks them slowly, feeling loose, enjoying the sound of crickets chirping in the distance and the cool night air drifting in lazily through the window screens. Glancing down at Scott, admiring his profile, she runs her index finger once down the long bridge of his nose.

Scott answers with a low hum, apparently not as asleep as she thought he was. He cracks one eye open to look at her. “You love my big noooose,” he mumbles, drawing out the words. She can feel his voice rumble through his chest where she has her arm draped loosely around him.

Tessa finds, more and more with every day, just how much she loves every single thing about him. And lately, she’s been searching for the right words to let him know. For now, however, she just laughs down at him, patting at his side. Scott smiles back sleepily and closes his eyes again.

With Scott having given up on entertaining, Tessa reaches for the photo album Alma left on the end table instead, opening the heavy book and flipping absentmindedly through the pages. The pictures inside seem to span the entirety of the Moir brothers’ childhoods - ranging from birthday parties and over-bundled sledding outings to gawky school photos and family vacations. There’s even one choice shot of the young brothers all in the bathtub together, matching soap mohawks standing tall in their wet hair. A classic. The familiarity makes Tessa smile, nostalgia carving out space in her chest.

The pictures don’t appear to be sorted in any meaningful way, moving anachronistically between ages and places without any discernible logic. As Tessa flips past Danny’s garish prom photos, the cellophane crinkling under her fingertips, she’s met on the next page by a much younger version of Scott, standing ramrod straight on an expanse of ice in a pair of hand-me-down skates. The entire sheet is filled with pictures from Scott’s early ice dancing days, and the next several pages too. Tessa laughs in delight, pulling the book closer in interest.

There are years’ worth of photos, podium scenes, action shots, costume tests and everything else, from Scott’s beginner days to his more gangly teenage years. In all of them, his partner - Cath, as Tessa has learned - stands beautiful and poised next to him. In some they’re smiling and goofing off together, in others they have their eyes fixed on each other, focused as they work through an element; a lift, a spin, a single moment frozen in time forever.

He and Cath stayed friends, Tessa knows, albeit distant ones, even after their lives separated. Tessa’s glad for it. Figure skating was an integral part of Scott’s life, one he would never deliberately choose to leave behind, and one that Tessa would never want him to.

Scott’s humble, but Tessa has heard enough from his family by now to know he was a natural talent on the ice. A prodigy, even, from the very beginning. It’s not something she needed to be told, either. Tessa’s spent more time back on the ice with Scott in the last few months than she did in the entire decade before they met. On top of raw talent, Scott also possesses an unparalleled amount of strength and control that he worked hard to develop from a young age. His skill is pure and concentrated - his edge quality that much better, his glide that much smoother, even now as an adult. Tessa wouldn’t need to have skated at Scott’s side to recognize how immensely gifted he is.

Scott amazes her every time they step out onto the ice together. Tessa feels grateful to have a part in this aspect of Scott’s life, even if only a small one.

Tessa studies each of the pictures closely, taking in all the details of this younger version of Scott she never got to know. He clearly had the exact same personality as the man next to her does now. Funny and generous and kind. A small boy with a buzzcut, he’s putting on a show in the pictures, making everyone around him laugh. A dedicated partner, he’s looking out for Cath across their years together, holding her hand in the same artless way Tessa did with her first skating partner. He’s always been _Scott_ , and that small realization makes Tessa grin, a feeling of warm tenderness enveloping her.

And then she sees it.

It’s only a single photo, unremarkable among the dozens that look just like it. But the color of the dress catches Tessa’s eye. Pale turquoise and scattered with sequins. It’s something she wore many times, one of her very first skating costumes. Putting it on made her feel like a real ice dancer. She was always so proud of it.

Tessa would recognize it anywhere.

Same with the skates. Bright white, brand new and unblemished, she still remembers what they felt like on her feet at the fitting. A flashbulb memory from her childhood, ingrained in her mind.

The shock of unexpected recognition almost takes Tessa’s breath away.

Because that’s her dress and those are her skates. That lipstick, a shade too dark, is the same color her mom carefully applied before every important event. That’s her dark hair and those are the same bangs she had all through elementary school. Those are her thin arms crossed behind her back as she waits to take the first step forward.

That’s Tessa, in Scott’s family photo album, standing next to him on the ice at seven years old.

She can barely get the words out. “Scott?” Tessa whispers, dazed. She can’t stop staring at the photo.

“Hmm?”

“Scott,” she says again, more forcefully. She taps urgently at his shoulder.

He sits up clumsily, propping himself up on an elbow. “What’s up?” he asks, eyebrows turned in, concerned.

She tears her eyes away to meet his gaze. “That’s me.”

Scott frowns. “What?’

“That’s _me,_ ” Tessa repeats. She angles the photo album toward him.

Scott follows her finger down to the photo. Tessa watches as the sleep slowly clears from his face, his eyes widening as he absorbs what it is she’s saying. He gently pulls the book from her hands.

“Holy shit,” Scott murmurs. He peers closer. “I must have been, what, nine when this was taken? That would’ve been right around the time my aunt was holding tryouts with all these girls to find me a partner. I was just moving into ice dance. Cath came later, but for a while I didn’t -”

Scott breaks off to look up at Tessa. “We skated together.”

Tessa can only gape at him, shaking her head minutely in shock. All this time…

The swing sofa rocks turbulently under her as Scott scrambles to sit up. They fumble with the photo album, spreading it across their laps where they sit, legs pressed together. Carefully, Scott peels the cellophane away and pulls the photo out of its sleeve. On the back, in his mother’s loopy cursive, the description reads: _Scott’s first tryout, London, 1997_.

Tessa’s not sure if she was expecting to find her name written alongside his or not. Scott lowers the picture, turning to stare at her.

“You were my first partner,” he says softly.

Tessa laughs, a touch manic. “I mean, not _really_ ,” she says. “It was just a tryout.”

Tessa thinks back to what she asked Scott all those months ago. _Can you imagine if we would’ve skated together before today? Been paired together when we were just kids?_

The photographic evidence is sitting on her lap, yet she can still hardly believe it.

Scott doesn’t hesitate to pull her closer, wrapping his arms firmly around her. He kisses her neck once before burying his face in her shoulder. Tessa feels herself melt into his embrace, her eyes slipping shut. It’s exactly what she needed, to feel Scott real and present and with her.

She feels his body shudder as he takes in a deep breath. “I’m so lucky to have you in my life, T. You’re the best part,” he begins to say, the words tumbling out urgently. “You make me so happy. You’ve been there all along, even if we -”

Suddenly, her own words that she’d been searching for no longer seem so hard to find. She doesn’t let him finish, not able to hold them back. “I love you so much,” Tessa chokes out, voice quavering with emotion.

She hears Scott’s sharp inhale, then he’s pulling away, just enough to look at her. He clutches her face close in both of his palms, their eyes burning into each other’s. Tessa gasps out a wet laugh, recognizing the same feeling swelling in her heart reflected back in his gaze. Scott rushes back in, pressing his lips to hers again and again.

“I love you too, I love you,” he says fiercely, their lips parting together. “I love you so much, Tess.”

Between their kisses, Tessa can’t stop laughing. And if she cries too, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Scott brushes away the single euphoric tear that falls across her cheek, his own wet eyes matching hers.

As the night settles around them, they hold each other close and don't let go.

* * *

Tessa takes special care to unpack the three photos from the boxes as soon as they’re brought inside. Carefully wrapped and bundled together in their simple black frames, she unfolds the layers of newsprint and pulls them free, brushing away any dust with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. The empty house echoes around her, the lingering smell of fresh paint reminding her of the two days they spent renovating, eating leftover pizza on the floor and making love in their bed, the only piece of furniture they bothered to bring at first.

They’re building a home together, something permanent, something lasting, and somehow it wouldn’t feel right without these present from the start.

Tessa hangs them in a row.

On the left, a picture found unexpectedly in a photo album. Two kids, two perfect strangers who could never have guessed where they’d find each other again, what the moment they were living would come to mean.

On the right, one of Tessa’s favorite photos. A snapshot of her and Scott taken shortly after they started dating, their cheeks pressed together, their smiles silly, brilliant, and true. Tessa remembers exactly how she felt that day, when she first began to realize that Scott Moir would forever be a part of her life.

And between them, the front side of a postcard. A stock photo of tidy brownstones in a row, framed on each side by green trees flowering pink in the summer.

Their life, together, in three beginnings.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3
> 
> [fic post](http://mooodlighting.tumblr.com/post/172740275495/at-another-place-in-time-on-the-back-theres-a)


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